How Well Does Goodreads Know Me?

It is my birthday! I am officially 31 years old. Time for cake! Friday is always a bit of a weird day to have a birthday it feels. Weekend is just around the corner. But everyone is at work so you can’t really celebrate. On the blog I’ve done the wishlist and birthday tag before. But this year I decided to do something different.

How It Works

Go to Goodreads and open up recommendations under the browse tab. Goodreads recommends books based on the shelves you have and they tend to be around 50 for each shelf. You can pick a few or do all shelves if you wish. Share the recommendations you want to read from it.

I’ve decided to go for 5 shelves.

Recommendations Based on My Favorites Shelf

4/50

From 50 recommendations I ended up choosing only 4 books that I really wanted to read. There were a few others that I had some questions around whether or not I’d really wanted to read those but I decided not to count them. And there were some books that I removed from my physical TBR this year which was interesting haha.

The first one that popped out wasAngel’s Blood by Nalini Singh. It is the first of the Guild Hunter series. I’ve read one book by this author so far from another series and quite enjoyed that so I’m totally up for reading more by her (but her series are so long oh my gosh). This rec was based on my love for The Others books by Anne Bishop.

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic I think I remember seeing over on Paper Fury’s blog a few times so that spoke to me right away. The rec was based on The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater which is even better.

And I Darken by KierstenWhite is of course one I’ve heard about but just never had clicked want to read on I guess. It is a historical book so that is always a bit difficult for me. This rec was based on A Conjuring of Light and the last Magnus Chase book which is…interesting.

And then there is the graphic novel of The Graveyard Book. This rec is based on my loving of The Sleeper and the Spindle and the book The Graveyard Book of course. So yes I would love to read this one too.

Recommendations Based on My Dragons Shelf

5/14

Unsurprisingly percentage wise the recs for this shelf for quite a bit better. Dragons you all. Not that all these books are actually about dragons, perse…

The next one I was surprised to see because of the author. I’ve seen Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives around but have never seen this book, King’s Dragon, around. Color me intrigued.

Moving on, The City of Stained Red has an interesting cover. Robin Hobb rated this book rather highly so I am interested to a point. And lastly we have Moth and Spark which has dragons which is like an immediate sell for me. Surprise, right?

Recommendations Based on My Fantasy Shelf

3/50

And I Darken is obviously a repeat. Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is one book I’ve added and removed of my to be read. I mean, yeay necromancers, and yet I never buy it so I keep removing it and then re-adding it when I come across it again.

The Unwritten is a graphic novel that sounds really interesting. The mc’s father has written a fantasy series with his son as the main character, or at least based on him. Which causes him all kinds of troubles. Adding in that this is a fantasy and you have me sold.

Recommendations Based on My Sci-Fi Shelf

4/50

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor of course has been on my radar a while. I just have been planning on getting the bind-up that comes out next year. The Foundation novels I of course also want to read. I just want to start with the Robot series first.

I’ve read most of Shanna Swendson’s other series, Enchantic Inc., and enjoyed it. So I am certainly interested in reading other things by her like Rebel Mechanics. And Ninefox Gambit looks super interesting. That cover!

Recommendations Based on My 5 Stars Shelf

4/50

So here there are 3 repeats with my favorites shelf which is of course not that surprising. Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan is a new one. I have heard of this author and mostly heard good things so I can see myself wanting to read that. This rec is based on Red Seas under Red Skies.

So does goodreads know me? Eh, not that well to be honest. There was a lot in there that I didn’t care for. But maybe I’ve just gotten more critical. Do you often look at the Goodread Recommendations?

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24 thoughts on “How Well Does Goodreads Know Me?”

OH, this is SUCH a cool idea! I’ve never even utilized this feature before (I didn’t know it existed 😂) but it sounds like a cool way to get a narrower scope of recommendations. And I Darken is SO good (though it’s nothing like A Conjuring of Light, what!) Hold Me Closer, Necromancer was super unique but unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy it. 😦

Right? Its a lot of fun to look into some recs. (Yes some of what the recs were based on were so weird).
Yeah I’ve heard that about Hold Me Closer, Necromancer more which is why I think I keep adding and removing it haha.

I had Moth and Spark on my radar for awhile and I don’t remember why. I don’t think I have it shelved on Goodreads, though. I’ll have to go and have a look at it. 🐲

I love the cover of The Unwritten. 👍✨

I didn’t know that we could do this on Goodreads. I have to check it out and maybe I’ll do this tag. All I know is both Goodreads and Amazon have it all wrong when they keep recommending romances for me. I think maybe it’s because I talk about hating romance so much and that word keeps popping up on my accounts. 😛

Happy belated birthday! Hope you had a great one 🙂
This sounds like a great prompt! I find goodreads recommendation are more misses than hits, but it does let me discover some fun books I would never had heard of otherwise.

It’s been a long time since I looked at my Goodreads recommendation (cos they weren’t that great last time I checked), but now I am curious to see if anything stands out! It’s interesting to see which books show up for multiple shelves.

Welcome to A Dance with Books

I’m Annemieke. A Dutch book blogger who blogs in English. But I’m also a wife and mom. I prefer to read fantasy (adult and young adult) books but sometimes I deviate from that genre a little. Feel free to leave me a comment or contact me through other social media accounts. I always welcome a chat.

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